Five details:
1. The agency requested hospitals report once a week their progress on immunizing healthcare personnel and patients, but data will not initially be made public for individual hospitals, said senior HHS officials, according to the report.
2. HHS plans to make the vaccine administration data public after verifying its quality and said the information will help federal agencies anticipate the need for masks and other protective equipment used to prevent the spread of the virus between hospital workers and patients as well as prepare hospitals for staff shortages in areas with surging cases.
3. Hospitals will be asked to report the total number of doses administered and personnel and patients who have received first or second doses. This will also help ensure the vaccines are distributed equally, the HHS officials said.
4. Reporting by hospitals will be voluntary, but a senior HHS official declined to say whether vaccine data reporting will be made mandatory .
5. Most COVID-19 data reported by hospitals during the pandemic was done on a voluntary basis until CMS made it mandatory last fall.
More articles on data analytics:
Missouri county health department missing 2 months of flu data
Indiana taps Zotec for statewide COVID-19 vaccine management system
‘We’re fighting COVID one-handed’: 2 Mass General physicians on the need to strengthen data systems
